Build a repeatable workflow

A Project gives you a setup you can reuse. This lesson is what you do with it: take a task you repeat and turn it into a workflow you run.

The difference between an errand and a workflow is repeatability. An errand is a thing you figure out fresh each time. A workflow is the same few moves in the same order, every time the task comes around, so you stop deciding how to do it and just do it. Claude is good at being a fixed step in that order.

Here is one, start to finish. The task is the month-end summary email you send a bookkeeping client. The setup is already done: from the last lesson, this client has a Project that holds their entities, the quirks of their books, and your standard summary format. So the monthly work is no longer "explain everything to Claude again." It is three moves.

First, when the month closes and the books are reconciled, you open the client's Project and hand Claude this month's figures.

You

Here are October's reconciled numbers for Chavez Construction. Revenue $84,200, expenses $61,500, net income $22,700, cash $47,300. One thing to flag for the client: the $9,800 equipment purchase in October. Draft the monthly summary in our usual format.

Claude

Hi [client],

Here is your October summary for Chavez Construction. Revenue came in at $84,200 against $61,500 in expenses, leaving net income of $22,700 for the month. The ending cash balance for the month sits at $47,300.

One item worth noting: the $9,800 equipment purchase in October is a one-time cost, so the month's expenses run a little higher than your usual. Backing that out, October is in line with where you have been running.

Second, before that draft goes anywhere, you check the figures in it against the reconciled trial balance. Polished writing is not evidence the figures are accurate.

Third, you send it.

Same process every month: hand over the figures, check the draft against the source, send the email once verified. The thinking you did the first time, about what the client needs to see and what to flag, is held in the Project. What is left each month is fast and repeatable, but still requires your judgment.